


Enduring on his One Leg

by OldShrewsburyian



Series: Dangerous Ends [5]
Category: The Hour
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, F/M, Fairy Tales, Hospitals, Literary References & Allusions, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 02:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11774079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Freddie, as usual, thinks too much.





	Enduring on his One Leg

Freddie Lyon tells himself firmly that any normal man under thirty — hell, under sixty — would relish the chance to be rid of a Zimmer frame. He tells himself that any sane man would not fear some collapse, some sudden dissolution of himself.

“Cheerly onward!” says Nurse Allen, who has a habit of optimistic quotation. Her expression suggests that Freddie’s attempt at a smile was not entirely convincing.

Freddie drags his leg behind him and thinks about fairy tales. The man who was once a prince, wandering blind through the world. The girl who was once a mermaid, walking over knives. Pacing is no word for what he is doing in this hospital corridor. Verity—Nurse Allen—is a silent presence, one or two normal steps behind. The noise of his own movement echoes mercilessly: the dull jab of the cane’s rubber tip against linoleum; the dragging, worse than a shuffle, of one soft-soled shoe. His breath comes hard, and he can feel the too-fast beating of his heart, like the thrashing of a drowning man. He thinks of the little tin soldier, plummeting through cold water to be devoured. The tin soldier, off-balance with one leg. The tin soldier, gazing and gazing with helpless desire at the ballerina who twirls to a music all her own. _Christ, what stories for children._

“You’re doing fine,” says Nurse Allen, and he realizes that he’s stopped. The silence holds only his heartbeat next to the endless hospital noises that form its texture. “Try taking shorter steps.”

He takes shorter steps. He tries to pretend he is anywhere but here. He listens for the sounds of another world, another life. His footsteps and Bel’s, echoing in an empty London street. _Let’s just walk._ The click of her heels, clear as though it were the only sound in the din of a Soho police raid. The click of the typewriters and the telex, rising around them, the metallic scent of newsprint as familiar and comforting as those of his mother’s fresh bread, his father’s cologne. Freddie shivers involuntarily. How distant those things now. He closes his hand more firmly over the cane.

“Look up,” suggests Nurse Allen. “It’ll be easier if you don’t try to look at your feet.”

He obeys, almost mechanically, and finds himself frozen with shock. He inhales sharply. _Not this, not now._ She is only a silhouette under the lights, and he would know her anywhere. He looks around, waiting for Nurse Allen to wave her wand and make them disappear. He looks up, praying for a shibboleth that will transport his body somewhere—anywhere—else. He waits for an impossible, inevitable miracle. _As Rapunzel’s tears fell on the prince’s face…_ But it doesn’t work like that. 

To his astonishment, Bel is running. She stops just short of collision, and throws her arms around him, unhesitating. He hears his own shocked exhalation, and then she is kissing him as if Nurse Allen were not there, as if they were alone, as if nothing else mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier."


End file.
